Martin is working at Genode Labs. He has been especially involved in the custom
kernel, platform support, networking and testing. Furthermore, he is
enthusiastic about Genode Labs' yearly Hack'n'Hike and the Microkernel
Devroom at the FOSDEM.

How to start my VM with the new Sculpt-CE preview

Things have changed a bit with the revised software deployment in the recently
published
preview of Sculpt CE.
No matter wether you are updating from Sculpt VC and have installed your VM
following the
Sculpt-VC documentation
or whether you downloaded a fresh Debian with the Sculpt-CE preview - this
brief walk-through might help you getting it to run (again). Of course, once
Sculpt CE gets released, the added documentation will explain things way more
comprehensive.

Until then, the following approach - using the themed window manager - might
be the easiest way to get along:

After Sculpt came up, connect to the network on the left-hand panel. This
is needed to install software.

In the + menu in the middle, go to "Depot... -> genodelabs -> GUI...",
select the "themed wm", and install it. Wait until the download at the left
side is finished.

In the menu in the middle a routing dialog for the themed WM pops up.
Use it to connect the themed WM as follows

GUI (focus) -> keyboard focus

GUI -> system GUI server

Report -> system reports

After now clicking "Add component", the component graph in the middle
should show the themed WM running.

For a quick test that the themed WM is running properly, you may
start "Depot... -> genodelabs -> Demos... -> nano3d" with the
following connection:

GUI -> themed wm

You should now see a spinning 3D shape in a window. After switching to the
runtime view by pressing F12, you should be able to move the window around.
Switch back to the Leitzentrale view using again the F12 key.

Start the vm_fs component by clicking on the corresponding launcher
at the top level of the + menu. This is a chroot instance that provides
the VM directory (<sculpt-partition>/vm/debian) as a file system.

Start the shared_fs component analogously to the VM FS. This chroot
instance provides the shared directory (<sculpt-partition>/shared/) as a
file system.

Start the usb_devices_rom component from the + menu, which can
be used to assign USB devices to the VM.

Now you can add the VM by selecting
"Depot... -> genodelabs -> Virtual machines... -> vbox5-nova-sculpt". Again,
a routing dialog pops up. Use it to connect the VM as follows:

File system (vm) -> vm fs

File system (shared) -> shared fs

GUI -> themed wm

Network -> nic router

ROM (capslock) -> global capslock state

ROM (platform info) -> platform information

ROM (usb devices) -> usb devices rom

Report (shape) -> themed wm

Report -> system reports

Region maps -> custom virtual memory objects

Real-time clock -> system clock

USB -> direct USB device access

Now the familiar virtual-machine window should come up in the runtime view.

Thanks to Norman Feske for writing the
prototype of this article as part of a mail discussion!